The Mischief of Madeline

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You may have gathered from the title of this blog that I have four cats. Yep, FOUR. I have two “big” ones and two “little” ones, even though they’re all around the same size now.

The first one we got was Winston, whom I refer to as Winnie. We got Winnie at the end of my sophomore year of high school. For a while after my cat Oliver mysteriously disappeared, we had no animals. This was a very peaceful time for my mother. However, one May night, my sister brought home a magnificent little kitten. (This was also the night of my St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra preliminary audition, which is the only reason I remember that it was in May.) My niece named him Shadow.

This was Winnie the night we got him. His name was Shadow back then. Here, he is being held by my little brother.

Several months went by. After we decided Shadow was dumb, we moved on to Harry. Then we changed it to Merlin. and finally settled on Winston.

Around the time we picked his name, I found two abandoned kittens under my porch. I took care of them for several weeks, but they both passed away. (We’ve decided that they were simply born too early, and that their mom probably abandoned them for a reason.) Their names were Little Grey and Orangie. I referred to them by their colors instead of names to keep from getting attached, since their survival was unlikely, but the colors ended up being their names.

Lil Grey, sleeping in her basket with her Angry Bird friend and her rice-filled warmth sock.

My all time favorite picture of anything ever. (Lil Grey)

Orangie.

After Lil Grey and Orangie passed away, my heart was broken. However, my mom’s coworker, Cindy, knew of a lady who was fostering a litter of kittens. She took me out to look at them, where I fell in love with this beauty.

She was so cute.

I picked her. On our second visit, I took this.

When I brought her home, I named her Callie. She is too smart for her own good. (TODAY IS ALSO HER BIRTHDAY. HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAL)

We lived happily in our two-cat household until about a year ago. My mom’s friend posted about some barn kittens she was giving away. I was in Springfield at the time. They hid in our laundry room until I got home. I took this picture the first night I was with them:

We had trouble deciding on their names, but eventually chose Pinky and Salem. Pinky was so named because her ears, her nose, and the pads of her paws are bright pink. Salem is named after this:

Those are all my babies! Current pictures of each:

Winston is now a large magnificent beast.

Callie. Yeah, she’s all stripedy now. She’s one of my favorites.

Me and Callie go on walks, such as this one yesterday.

Salem, looking sneaky.

And here’s Pinky, my other favorite. She lays on me a lot, and has a special “pick me up” meow for me. When I pick her up, she clings to me. I call her “ping pong” sometimes.

All of my cats are exclusively indoor cats. I take Callie outside on a leash, but that’s because she feels the call of the wild often and tries to escape. We live relatively close to a busy road, and a man in our neighborhood has some pretty violent dogs, so they do not leave the house. They also all have their claws, because I have pretty strong feelings about declawing.

So that’s the conclusion of today’s post! I hope you enjoyed looking at my babies.